From the author of

From the author of

Open Standards Mean Less Complexity

The IT industry is undergoing another period of major changes. New
technologies such as autonomic computing, web services, and grid computing are
opening the door to tremendous opportunities for taking business to the next
level of profitability and decreased complexity. The potential of these
technologies to transform business is amazing. And, just as open standards were
crucial to the emergence of the Internet and the first generation of e-business,
they will play a critical role in these next-generation systems by reducing the
levels of complexity in the organization.

We can define open standardsas the interfaces or formats that are
openly documented and have been accepted in the industry through either formal
or de facto processes, and that are freely available for adoption by the
industry. Some examples include HTTP, HTML, WAP, TCP/IP, VoiceXML, XML, and SQL.
Software engineers and programmers typically build such systems for software
companies who collaborate with industry standards organizations such as W3C,
OASIS, OMA, and IETF.

The open standards communities count major vendors such as IBM, HP, Sun,
Microsoft, Cisco, and Oracle among active contributors. Other members include
Red Hat, Apple, Intel, and thousands of other companies, as well as
institutional contributors such as Stanford, Berkeley, and the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT).

Why are major IT vendors and software companies increasingly interested in
open standards? Primarily because investing in these communities makes good
business sense. The global computer industry must cooperate in developing the
necessary open standards and interfaces to make future technology work and to
establish standards that will support a less complex computing environment.